Breastfeeding in the first hour after birth is vital to newborns, a new World Health Organization study said, but three in five babies around the world are not receiving this essential nutritional and disease-fighting booster.
The WHO report released on Tuesday comes after the U.S. was embroiled in a breatfeeding issue at the World Health Assembly and President Donald Trump had to tweet that we wasn't favoring the infant-formula industry versus breastfeeding.
The WHO said an estimated 78 million babies globally are not breastfeeding within the first hour of birth.
The organization said that "even a delay of a few hours after birth could pose life-threatening consequences. Skin-to-skin contact along with suckling at the breast stimulate the mother's production of breastmilk, including colostrum, also called the baby's 'first vaccine,' which is extremely rich in nutrients and antibodies."
WHO said breastfeeding rates within the first hour after birth are highest in Eastern and Southern Africa at 65 percent and lowest in East Asia and the Pacific at 32 percent. No data was provided for the United States in the study.
"When it comes to the start of breastfeeding, timing is everything," said Henrietta H. Fore, executive director for the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF. "In many countries, it can even be a matter of life or death.
"Yet each year, millions of newborns miss out on the benefits of early breastfeeding and the reasons – all too often – are things we can change. Mothers simply don't receive enough support to breastfeed within those crucial minutes after birth, even from medical personnel at health facilities."
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants be exclusively breastfed for about the first six months, with continued breastfeeding alongside introduction of appropriate complementary foods for one year or longer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Breastfeeding became political fodder last month when the Trump administration sought to soften a resolution by the World Health Assembly to encourage breastfeeding, The New York Times reported.
The U.S. delegation to the assembly reportedly tried to remove language that called on governments to "protect, promote and support breastfeeding" and another passage that called on lawmakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have negative effects on young children.
Trump pushed back on the suggestion that it was siding with the infant formula industry in a Twitter post.
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